... is not an easy thing to do. It is Thursday, June 22, 2017. We have had temperatures of 100 degrees, or higher, for the past six, and soon to be seven, days. It is, at this point, the third longest heat wave of the last 150 years. The longest was eleven days, next was nine days, now six straight days of 100+ degree weather. It is an odd series of weather conditions, seeing as how seven days ago, we had rain, hail, lightning, thunderstorms, and enough snow in the Sierra's to cause chain requirements on both I-80 and US-50. Just last week!!!!
No, I'm not jumping on the global-warming band wagon. I've spent a number of June days -- and a couple of May days as well -- sweltering through the last days of classes at Vaca High, and that's just over the last 50 years. In my lifetime, we've seen a number of drought days/years, and then have a rainy year that brings us out of it, for a while. It's a cycle, sometimes things get really bad, because the people in charge of the reservoirs work on projections, rather than realities. An example: let's just say that since our last rainy season officially ended a drought, one projection would be that we would have another year of like precipitation, and reservoirs dump millions of acre feet of fresh water out to the sea. If the following year does not pan-out for rainfall, we have great aerial shots of receding shorelines at our lakes, throw on a 15-second diatribe about global warming, and your get that "heard it here first" sound bite that will look prophetic as the weather cycles between rain and drought...
Yes, it is terrible, the amount of hydrocarbons we release each day, but it's insignificant when compared to that of China, India, and Europe. Each of those areas produce industrial pollution many times more than the USA does, and not even the more "doom and gloom" factions of the global warming folks will deny that. And yet, the US will pay to reduce its contributions to pollution, while the biggest polluters aren't required to reduce anything. In essence, the Paris Climate Accord put the US in a "cap and trade" situation, where companies would be able to buy the opportunities to increase their "cap," but do nothing to regulate the pollution created by other members of the accord. Essentially, we were in it because our leadership was stupid enough to believe that China, India, Europe, or Russia really gave a crap about global warming, or the effect that their pollution might have on that theory.
This is just my own thinking, here, but I believe that all of the "leaks" that have happened since 2008, have been by the global-warming faithful, to nations that are being perceived to be allied in the cause of global warming.
Think about that for a few minutes...
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Anyone for Cabo?
The Pirate Cruise Ships
It's always fun to travel with family... Pete, Tyff, Victor and Ryan.
The "Old People" in the bow at The Arch.
The fish were amazing through the glass bottom.
Looking back at The Arch from the Pacific Side.
One of the natural beaches cut out from the rocks.
The Arch fro the Sea of Cortez.
Daughter Tyffany enjoying the boat ride.
Again, "Old People" at The Arch
La playa del los liones del mar.
Hate is Such a Strong Word...
... and I am not one who gives into such a strong set of emotions, so if I screw up and say "I hate ..." it really doesn't mean that I despise, loathe, or otherwise detest the thing (persons, institutions, characters, etc.)... Except Virginia.
I was stationed on the USS INDEPENDENCE(CVA-62) from November 9, 1971 until October 10, 1974. I had petitioned for an early release, and could have been off in July, but was turned down due to a 90-day Wonder, who had, from the beginning of his time on the ship, made it his personal duty to make my life Hell. His big play, was that I was necessary to my Division, and had to have an on-board relief. This was all a load of ka-ka, as soon as they turned down my petition for early release, he sent me on Temporary Duty as a Mess Deck Master-at-Arms (essentially the baby sitter for 50 - or so - "Mess Cooks" - a misnomer, because none of the cooked anything, they did all of the clean-up). I had the "Starboard Crew" during our last week in Norfolk, VA, and through all but the last 5 days aboard INDY. So blatant was this man's dislike of me (over a Salute) that he caused some of the most senior enlisted guys in my Division to help me plot, and execute, revenge that I didn't get to see, but was told was "out-flipping-standing"...
Norfolk, Virginia is where I was baptized into the LDS Church, and where I had hoped I could make a fresh start on life. In 1972, after we returned to Norfolk from my first (partial) Mediterranean Deployment, or "Med Cruise," I started hanging out with guys who got drunk a lot, smoked a lot of pot, opium, and any other such stuff, and my life took a real downward spiral. I made one really good friend, "Ank," but I really can't remember any of the others, though they did have an impact on my life. It wasn't exactly like "falling down a rabbit hole," it was more like being on an express elevator to Hell, and it was going really fast...
Those of you who have read my blog, or have spent any kind of time with me, know that Norfolk is where I got so desperately lonely, that taking a leap from the mast of the INDY into the solid concrete of a dry-dock, became a viable option for me, and about the interruption that kept me from doing it, so I won't go into that.
The important thing was being alone. And I mean A-L-O-N-E. I had A friend, and a bunch of jerks I worked with, but Ank had his own problems, and we really never got close enough for me to think about discussing the more serious stuff with him, and the guys at work were quicker than a Hillary-supporter with an anonymously-sourced "news" item. In Norfolk, "proper" young ladies didn't go out with Sailors, and we were treated very shabbily by the "No-fuggers". Even the LDS folks treated the Sailors in their Wards as a lower life form, but that came later. There were a number of "deployment widows," women who's husbands were deployed, and were looking for stand-ins, and "bar hogs," women who hung out in the bars, and would do just about anything, as long as you kept the drinks coming, but that was, pretty much, the limit of a single young male's female companionship in Norfolk, in the early 1970's. I just didn't want that. I wanted to find "HER," the woman who would hold the keys to my heart, whom I could love, and talk to, and pour the secrets of my soul to, not some "one night stand," or until someone's husband came home.
That's what Norfolk will always represent to me, abject loneliness. I understand that much has been done to improve conditions there, and that's nice. It's four decades too late for me, and the damage was done. I do not plan on ever going there, I'm just not that curious. I got out of there once, I'm not going to take any chances on a second time.
I was stationed on the USS INDEPENDENCE(CVA-62) from November 9, 1971 until October 10, 1974. I had petitioned for an early release, and could have been off in July, but was turned down due to a 90-day Wonder, who had, from the beginning of his time on the ship, made it his personal duty to make my life Hell. His big play, was that I was necessary to my Division, and had to have an on-board relief. This was all a load of ka-ka, as soon as they turned down my petition for early release, he sent me on Temporary Duty as a Mess Deck Master-at-Arms (essentially the baby sitter for 50 - or so - "Mess Cooks" - a misnomer, because none of the cooked anything, they did all of the clean-up). I had the "Starboard Crew" during our last week in Norfolk, VA, and through all but the last 5 days aboard INDY. So blatant was this man's dislike of me (over a Salute) that he caused some of the most senior enlisted guys in my Division to help me plot, and execute, revenge that I didn't get to see, but was told was "out-flipping-standing"...
Norfolk, Virginia is where I was baptized into the LDS Church, and where I had hoped I could make a fresh start on life. In 1972, after we returned to Norfolk from my first (partial) Mediterranean Deployment, or "Med Cruise," I started hanging out with guys who got drunk a lot, smoked a lot of pot, opium, and any other such stuff, and my life took a real downward spiral. I made one really good friend, "Ank," but I really can't remember any of the others, though they did have an impact on my life. It wasn't exactly like "falling down a rabbit hole," it was more like being on an express elevator to Hell, and it was going really fast...
Those of you who have read my blog, or have spent any kind of time with me, know that Norfolk is where I got so desperately lonely, that taking a leap from the mast of the INDY into the solid concrete of a dry-dock, became a viable option for me, and about the interruption that kept me from doing it, so I won't go into that.
The important thing was being alone. And I mean A-L-O-N-E. I had A friend, and a bunch of jerks I worked with, but Ank had his own problems, and we really never got close enough for me to think about discussing the more serious stuff with him, and the guys at work were quicker than a Hillary-supporter with an anonymously-sourced "news" item. In Norfolk, "proper" young ladies didn't go out with Sailors, and we were treated very shabbily by the "No-fuggers". Even the LDS folks treated the Sailors in their Wards as a lower life form, but that came later. There were a number of "deployment widows," women who's husbands were deployed, and were looking for stand-ins, and "bar hogs," women who hung out in the bars, and would do just about anything, as long as you kept the drinks coming, but that was, pretty much, the limit of a single young male's female companionship in Norfolk, in the early 1970's. I just didn't want that. I wanted to find "HER," the woman who would hold the keys to my heart, whom I could love, and talk to, and pour the secrets of my soul to, not some "one night stand," or until someone's husband came home.
That's what Norfolk will always represent to me, abject loneliness. I understand that much has been done to improve conditions there, and that's nice. It's four decades too late for me, and the damage was done. I do not plan on ever going there, I'm just not that curious. I got out of there once, I'm not going to take any chances on a second time.
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